Strategic Nuclear Sub Officer's Quote of the Month

Assignment of supply officers to SSBN subs as policewomen for political correctness demeans normal, red-blooded males, undermines morale and imbeds a disturbing vulnerability into the primary strategic mission.

How can anyone except the current administration wonder why there has been a shocking deterioration in our once admirably disciplined Air Force and Navy  STRATEGIC nuclear forces?!

"The only reason I was there was to stop the submariners from being a--holes, and to get the women to stop crying,"   -

Stated to NavyTimes by an unidentified female Supply Officer (lieutenant) formerly assigned to a U.S. ballistic missile submarine. now retired. She was one the first female volunteers for the submarine force, and fortunately, is now retired from the Navy.

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Can there be any worse folly than insertion of multivariate gender dynamics into traditionally well-run and highly disciplined U.S. strategic missions (Air Force and Navy nuclear missile crews)?  Combining biological clocks and nuclear triggers may be politically correct, but it was unnecessary and now appears imprudent.  Some of USS Wyoming's Gold crew have been sidelined as the investigation "continues":
 

Vice Adm. M.J. Connor, commander of the Navy’s submarine force, said in a letter dated Thursday that the alleged perpetrators have been removed from the USS Wyoming while an investigation is conducted. The nuclear-armed submarine is based at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia. - WJCL NEWS

While the alleged invasion of privacy is probably criminal and certainly regrettable, 
assignment of supply officers to SSBN subs as policewomen for political correctness is a disgraceful insult to normal, red-blooded male morale and imbeds a disturbing vulnerability into the primary strategic mission.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Consider the timing...

Background
Operation Wigwam  evaluated the detonation of a Mark 90 Betty, a nuclear depth bomb.  The test was conducted May 14th in 1955, some 500 miles southwest of San Diego.  OP Wigwam results helped determine (see declassified Wigwam film) the effectiveness of deeply detonated nuclear weapons (nuclear torpedoes and depth charges, for example) in combat against submerged eneny subs.


What prompted Operation Wigwam to surface at 'War Is Boring" in December of 2014?


First, we know that nuclear tests are conducted and evaluated with limited publicity and nil transparency of results until declassified decades later:

"The bomb was suspended by cable from an unmanned barge and detonated at a depth of 2,000 feet in water that was 16,000 feet deep. The test had a yield of 30 kilotons. ...

In 1980, when the details of Operation Wigwam became publicly known, Governor Brown of California issued an immediate call for the federal government to publicly release the names of all servicemen involved in Wigwam, so that they could receive suitable medical treatment."  source

Additionally, tests, capabilities, limitations and ceetain operations applicable to specific U.S. submarines are justifiable secrets kept from public knowledge for significant periods of time.
Wigwam participants had to sign 25-year nondisclosure and secrecy agreements. Since all submariners had already signed some form of secrecy agreement beforehand, it was also necessary for many to sign non-travel agreements to certain foreign destinations for x years after their discharge from active duty.


More Recent Events

North Korea Is In The Process Of Developing A Fleet Of Nuclear Missile-Capable Submarines

In October, US General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of US forces on the Korean peninsula, warned that North Korea had developed "the capability to miniaturize a device at this point and they have the technology to actually deliver what they say they have."

In addition to submarine and WMD ambitions of known and suspected bad actors like North Korea, there have been unprecedented programs to acquire updated subs by nations dependent upon oil for food and energy shipments in an age of piracy, crime and Russian imperialism:

Global Submarine Proliferation: Emerging Trends and Problems

"Russia continues to be an active exporter of finished diesel submarines and is now providing nuclear reactor and submarine-design technology to China and India. In the Middle East and elsewhere, Germany remains a major submarine exporter, despite the WMD potential of some of its clients."

 In Molten Eagle's opinion, the How to Nuke a Submarine article by War Is Boring contributor Steve Weintz is a very timely reminder to potential bad actors of a severe, unexpected vulnerability to any injudicious acts they may have planned.  Like India (unfortunately) the DPRK has decades of catchup to overcome.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Bills in Congress for Air Force to accept hearing-impaired

Background (from March 08, 2011)
Molten Eagle had asked, after Female Submariners: What Will Be the Next "Right Thing to Do"?  

We thoughtfully posed the following question at the time:

"Currently, Sonar Technicians must have fairly acute hearing, although automation and hearing aids will someday overcome human ineptitude. Is their any good legal reason, however, nuclear personnel and officers must be fully hearing capable? That is what we thought."


Fast Forward about Three and a half years to Now
Sep. 16, 2014 (AP)  AirForce Times.com
Deaf students push for admission to Air Force

MORGANTON, N.C. — Students and teachers at the North Carolina School for the Deaf are pushing for the right of the hearing-impaired to serve in the military.

The News-Herald of Morganton reported that students and teachers from the school went to Washington, D.C., late last week to push for legislation that would allow a test group to enlist in the Air Force.

They endorsed two bills in Congress that would require the Air Force to carry out a program to assess the feasibility of giving people with hearing problems the right to become officers.

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Submarines are always silent and strange.

Update: 2008 Main Hydraulic Failure

Almost exactly six years ago we published Caruso's "Two Minutes Before Main Hydraulic Failure".

Now, there is more:  "2 USAF missileers to work with Navy in morale-improvement effort"

They’re Air Force missileers, but their next assignments are with the Navy. ...

They are the first to be selected for the new Striker Trident program — one of the Air Force’s efforts to improve morale in the nuclear force.

As part of a high-profile investigation into cheating by nuclear missile officers on a monthly proficiency exam,Air Force officials formed a team of experts to interview officers about morale issues plaguing the career field.  ... Jointly developed by the Air Force and Navy, the program will rotate up to four missile and nuclear operations officers in three-year assignments with naval submarine commands.  ... Because the assignments are to command staff, and not actually to a submarine crew, there are no gender constraints associated, Global Strike Command spokeswoman Kathryn Blais told Air Force Times.

“We want to give our 13Ns the opportunity to gain some valuable cross-service experience in preparation for future joint assignments,” Capt. Tracy Prey, chief of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Operations Command and Control Programs for Global Strike Command’s operations directorate, said in a release.

And Submariners probably thought 13 was an unlucky number!  Suggestions to Air Force: drop the Mickey Mouse term 'Missileeers' to start improving morale and redesignate 13Ns to 13²Ns.  

Submarines are always silent and strange.